


Reliquary

by anomieow



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Fingering, D/s, M/M, PWP, Praise, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Spanking, Topson, Verbal Humiliation, light age play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow
Summary: “Your coat, Francis,” Jopson says without raising his head. “You’ve torn it again.”That’s his Christian name on Jopson’s tongue, spoken with a tinge of displeasure too. Francis shifts his weight uneasily, rolls his shoulders. “The same seam as last time,” Jopson continues, laying the coat gently across his lap.Francis approaches. His posture is stiff, his arms rigid at his side. But his voice, when he speaks, dances the blade’s width between teasing and chiding. “Perhaps it wasn’t mended properly last time, mm?”
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Thomas Jopson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48





	Reliquary

“Mending, Jopson?” Francis asks, stepping toward his steward, who hunches slightly over his work, his back to the door. Odd button aside, he’s never caught him at the task before. His damaged clothing simply vanishes and then reappears, made perfect again.

“Your coat, Francis,” Jopson says without raising his head. “You’ve torn it again.”

That’s his Christian name on Jopson’s tongue, spoken with a tinge of displeasure too. Francis shifts his weight uneasily, rolls his shoulders. “The same seam as last time,” Jopson continues, laying the coat gently across his lap. 

Francis approaches. His posture is stiff, his arms rigid at his side. But his voice, when he speaks, dances the blade’s width between teasing and chiding. “Perhaps it wasn’t mended properly last time, mm?”

Jopson doesn’t seem to have heard. He hasn’t actually begun his work yet: Francis watches as he licks the thread to a point and slips it through the needle’s eye. He nimbly knots it and lays it on the table. Then, swift as a striking snake, he rises partway out of his chair and pulls Francis to kneel eye-level with the torn coat, and, coincidentally, Jopson’s strong and slender thighs, between which he loves to labor. He catches his breath and dares a glance at Jopson’s face. He’s gazing down at him with the thoughtful sternness of a father his recalcitrant child. Then his fingers are clenched in Francis’ hair, a sudden and proprietary grip, as he jams his face into the split in the silk. “My stitching is always impeccable,” he says coolly, as though he didn’t hold his captain’s head in his palm, didn’t feel the hot spread of his breath against his thigh. “You’re just careless, is all.”

“I’ll show you careless,” Francis snarls, dipping and twisting out of Jopson’s grasp, then rocking back on his heels to stand. He staggers as he rises. It’s no work for Jopson to bring him down again, this time over his lap, the curve of his belly dipping between his thighs. He squirms from one side to the other, can’t gain purchase, heaves a great sigh. Lies still.

Jopson clasps one full buttock and strokes it. “That _was_ careless,” he chastises, lifting his hand into the air. Francis tenses for it, but nevertheless gasps through gritted teeth when that open palm arcs swiftly down against the curve of his ass.

Francis is silent a moment, his eyes shut, nostrils flared. Then he turns and, craning his neck to meet Jopson’s sea-colored eyes, says, “Awfully hard on my britches for one so concerned about the state of my wardrobe.”

“Christ, but you’re full of it tonight. Did you let Commander Fitzjames spoil your day again?”

“He insisted on coming along with Thomas and I to look at the ice, which of course reminded him of a story. Just Thomas and I, you understand. Man needs to know his audience, and know we don’t give a good goddamn—“

“Surely a bit of vainglory in’t enough to send you back to me in such high dudgeon.”

“It needn’t have. But then I find you here, scolding me like—“

The hand is raised and clapping down again before the exhalation’s done that carried the words from his mouth. “Nah, now... you come in asking for it,” Jopson chides lightly. “I know one of your tempers more’n a mile away.” More and more often in their intimate moments, especially when Jopson wrests from Francis his rank and stature, he lets dissolve here and there his affected tongue, that poshness of pronunciation cultivated in the name of servility. Instead, vowels eddy out from the fore of his mouth, teeth softly parted, and certain consonants, like any terminal ‘g’, disappear. His accent broadens, coarsens, until he’s lording it over his captain in the tongue of the down-heeled Marylebone lad he is at heart. 

“My tempers, as you call them, are not your business, Jopson.”

“Mendin’ after ‘em is,” Jopson says sharply, working the coat, now wadded, out from beneath Francis’ chest. “This, for example. You know how ‘twas got ripped?”

“I’ve had that coat longer than you’ve been on this earth, lad.”

Now the starched accent of the steward returns. “First, call me _lad_ one more time and you’ll not get your old man’s mouth round my beaut of a lad’s cock for at least a week.” He pauses for these words to sink in—a sharp catch deep in the throat, a shift of the hips against his thigh. “Second, the whole wardroom were outfitted new for the expedition, Francis. You know that. And not for cheap, either. Yet you’ve torn this lining—three times now. How? I know precisely how.” He tosses the coat onto the table behind him. “This time, anyway, it was when you brought your fist down on the table, provoked, no doubt, by some little barb from Fitzjames’.” His voice is musical, soft: anyone eavesdropping, hearing only the texture of it and not the words, would think he was apprising Francis of tedious ship’s gossip. But now he drops it lower. “I’ve warned you before: such an easy temper is childish. It is unbecoming of a man of your station, and... repulsive as well.” He strokes Francis’ cheek with his knuckles. “You don’t... wish me to find you repulsive, do you?” 

That strikes home, and both men know it. For Francis keeps enshrined at the hind of his heart an icon of himself as a repulsive grotesque: bloated, decrepit, his hands staining all they touch. This vision of himself he at once fears and cherishes as a pious man does the garish likeness of a papist saint. In turn, it casts bits of rage down to him for to feed on. And Jopson—Christ, Jopson. Almost half his age, lean and light-eyed, his ruddy cheeks and heavy, eager cock the only earthly things about one whom otherwise might be cast as the most angelic of all the host in a pageant—his thorny affections are at once punishing enough to reward Francis’ self-loathing and heavenly enough to question its veracity.

Now he lets drop his head. “No,” he murmurs. “I don’t wish you to think... the lesser of me.”

“Then you’ll behave? I’ll not have to mend this seam again?”

“No.”

“No... what?

“No... sir. I promise it.” 

“All the same, punishment is owed for the damage already done. Wouldn’t you agree?” As he speaks, he grabs a greedy palmful of Francis’ arse and digs his fingertips in til he whines and squirms deliciously against him. “Yes?” he prods. Francis nods. 

What happens next should be rote by now but Francis’ hands still tremble; he still scrabbles for breath. Terrified, he is, feeling somehow chastised as he stands rigid before Jopson, his fingers on the buttons of his coat, glancing questioningly at him. Jopson nods once, a neat dip of his chin. A gentle smile playing on his lips. *Yes.* So button by agonizing button, Francis divests himself first of his coat and then his waistcoat and braces, folding each neatly and laying them upon the table. Jopson’s eyes chart the curves and planes of his body, palming his own prick as he does so. His gaze is at once hungry and assessing and seems to deepen with each layer Francis removes. After what feels like an eternity he’s standing there in his trousers only, and those tugged down to his knees. Francis always wants to cover his face when he reveals his cock, which at the moment sleepily lifts its head like an old dog woken by his master’s footfall. Jopson gives another small nod, eyes soft and approving, and pats his knee. 

Francis is most sensitive where his thighs meet his buttocks and it is here Jopson focuses his opening attentions, first dragging his fingertips along that shallow crease—Francis’ breathing quickening—before raising his hand for a soft smack, more of a caress than a spanking. “Count,” he orders softly. “Fifteen will do. That was one.”

Two and three are quick and smart, higher up, and four means business: this one drives his hips hard against Jopson’s thigh and he gives a strangled cry. “Shh, shh,” Jopson murmurs, petting the reddening flesh. “That’s a good lad.” Francis wants to melt into that caressing hand, to make himself small and be folded into it. Five is thunderous, aimed low, and starts tears from his eyes. Six and seven are the same; he seizes his forearm in his teeth to keep himself from crying out. Then Jopson hitches him forward—strong, he is, in the way those who grew up rough tend to be. Francis himself is still strong too, though his is the stout, indefatigable strength of a draft horse, and, like the power of a draft horse, it’s coiled beneath smooth, phlegmatic curves; a heaviness and stolidity of movement easily mistaken for laxity. But when they wrestle, Francis often very nearly bests Jopson, pinning his slender, bucking form beneath his own pale, muscular thighs. Jopson’s eyes flash then, and he shows his teeth—

“Spread,” Jopson commands shortly, having made room for Francis to settle deeper into his lap. Now his stones and prick are pressed painfully into Jopson’s thigh and his center of gravity is tipped steeply forward. He’s all but helpless, and the most sensitive parts of him exposed besides. His cock hardens in earnest now just as a chill wave of fear, like a rivulet of water, trickles down his spine. But then strokes eight, nine, and ten fall, brutal and rhythmic, and the flesh of his bottom is deliciously, almost unbearably tender. Jopson palms the pink flesh, rubbing and squeezing, and hums with satisfaction.

“You color up so nicely,” he says, dipping his fingers down into the cleft of Francis’ ass, teasing them over his puckered ring and up again. The moistened finger of his left hand replaces the right and his right palm comes slicing down. _Eleven_. But apparently he doesn’t say it aloud, for the slick, gentle press of the finger at his hole is swiftly removed. “Count,” Jopson reminds him, his voice hard.

“That was eleven, sir.”

Jopson nods and returns his finger to Francis’ hole, his touch lighter now, tracing tiny circles. Softly, gradually, he opens for Jopson, who slips his finger—crooked at the knuckle—inside. Francis gasps and bucks against Jopson’s hand. Jopson strokes his arse. “Patience, love,” he murmurs. “Good things come to those who wait.” Then he sucks in a sharp breath, exhales raggedly. _He is not ... unaffected, then_ , Francis thinks distantly, gratefully. Soon a second finger follows, eliciting a huffed moan of mingled pleasure and pain. Twelve claps down harder than the preceding eleven, knocking his prostate against Jopson’s nimble, long fingers. Francis breaks the skin of his forearm holding that scream in and thirteen, a softer stroke, tastes of blood. 

He twists a little and cranes his neck to look at Jopson. He is gazing intently at his own fingers moving in and out, this look on his face like—Christ, it’s this mix of lust and concentration and pleasure; Francis shifts the little he can and feels Jopson’s hard cock against his hip. Jopson smiles and without looking up, says, “You love this, don’t you? You disgusting old pervert—laid across my lap like a lad—my fingers inside you. And I young enough to be your son.” He locks eyes with Francis as he raises his hand and brings it down smartly. 

“Fourteen,” Francis manages, unable to tear his gaze away from Jopson’s, aware of how helplessly he’s writhing now against his lover’s clever fingers. It feels so perfect: the ungiving fullness of now three fingers in him, the flesh of his arse burning, rendered ticklishly tender and sore, the pain radiating from his leaking prick, pinned as it is between his own weight and the hardened length of Jopson’s thigh. He hardly feels fifteen, though he gasps the number out. For a moment they are silent. Jopson’s fingers slow, for he’s grown almost carelessly rough, his strokes greedily deep. He is gathering his concentration: Francis vaguely suspects, but doesn’t say anything, that Jopson had come perilously near spending in his britches just from the squirming, gasping weight of the older man across his lap. It’s happened once or twice before. His is an eager and sensitive tool, and can recover in a way Francis cannot. But there’s something callow about it that Jopson hates; it feels to him helpless and unclean, which is precisely why Francis is so pleased when it happens or even nearly happens. Now Jopson gradually eases his fingers out, pushes Francis off his lap. 

Jopson unfastens his trousers and pulls out his cock—indeed, it is angrily hard, tip gleaming and peeping hotly out. “You did well, Francis.” He unbuttons his coat as he speaks and slides it off. “You did so well.” He grabs hold of his tantalizing prick, glances at it, and back, meaningfully, at Francis as he begins to stroke it. “Do you see how well you did? Do you see how proud you’ve made me?” 

“Please,” Francis says, unable to raise his gaze to meet Jopson’s. “Sir.”

“Yes?”

“Please, can I — I want to...”

“Mmm?” His fist does not slow. “You’re usually so—ah—quick-witted—“ his words are punctuated by little gasps. 

“Please, can I...” he swallows thickly. He is made to ask every time, but it never gets easier. His cheeks burn; his mouth is dry. “...I want to taste you. Please. Your cock.” His voice is weak, imploring; he feels reduced to rubble by the blaze of the words on his tongue, but he can’t help it. Jopson smiles softly, nods. That single nod, and all it conveys: permission, approval, love—love as it exists between them, as gleaming and jagged as raw gold. Jopson pats his knee and Francis kneels, trembling, a pilgrim before a reliquary.


End file.
